COLORADO COVID: New record of COVID-positive patients in Colorado hospitals

FILE – Registered nurse Sara Nystrom, of Townshend, Vt., prepares to enter a patient’s room in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, in Lebanon, N.H., Jan. 3, 2022. The omicron variant has caused a surge of new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. and many hospitals are not only swamped with cases but severely shorthanded because of so many employees out with COVID-19. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

by: DJ Summers

Posted: Jan 10, 2022 / 05:03 PM MST

Updated: Jan 10, 2022 / 05:03 PM MST

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DENVER (KDVR) — Not only is the state seeing more daily COVID cases than ever before, but it’s also seeing the most people enter hospitals with the virus.

New data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment shows an average of 314 new patients admitted to hospitals testing positive for COVID. This is a new record. Previously, the 2020 fall wave saw the biggest hospital admissions numbers, reaching a peak of 292 per day.

The number of people entering hospitals with COVID has tripled since early December.

The overall number of hospitalizations, meanwhile, has risen sharply but has not yet reached the numbers seen last November. On Jan. 10, there were 1,466 patients in Colorado hospitals who tested positive for COVID – about 200 fewer than last November’s peak and 500 fewer than the fall 2020 wave peak.

The percentage of unvaccinated hospitalized patients has been dropping. The newly updated figures show 69% of hospitalized patients are unvaccinated, down from 73% only last week.